A few thoughts on Sarah Palin’s speech this past Saturday at the Tea Party convention in Nashville.

The ridicule from the left over her having some notes written on her hand while ignoring how President Obama can’t string three words together without a teleprompter is meaningless. The left will always criticize her regardless. It matters not. Instead, let’s focus on the whining coming from elements of the right.

Before getting into that, an observation. It’s human nature, when one dislikes their reflection, to blame the mirror. That can’t possibly be me I’m staring at with all those shortcomings! Or so we kid ourselves. We want to believe we are who we believe we are, evidence to the contrary be damned.

Ofttimes this mindset originates in good intentions. We strive to do that which we are convinced is right. However, danger lurks in this scenario. It’s very easy to inflate our genuine value in the midst of doing good works. This manifests itself in two ways: believing our personal conduct is immaterial because of our good works, or believing we personally are of far greater importance and influence than is actually the case. In both these scenarios, pride is the root cause for what started as doing the right thing but ended with our doing that which on the surface is the right thing yet when examined is anything but.

Back to Palin. The amount of friendly fire she has had thrown in her direction is at first glance astounding. Yet when examined in light of the above, its reason becomes clear. There are a lot of evil queens and kings out there who on the surface are quite beautiful, asking the mirror who’s the fairest of them all. When the reply is “not you,” they reveal their inner ugliness by throwing a hissy, followed by hissing venom at a housewife from Wasilla.

Sarah Palin is the mirror in which the wannabes see their insignificance. She doesn’t need the blogger prattlers or the Twitter twits or puffed-up pundits. She blows right past them, communicating directly with the people. The genuine media high fliers, the true high rollers — Limbaugh, Levin, Beck, Hannity — have both the intelligence to give her free reign and the humility to know her star shines far brighter than even theirs, wisely yielding the stage to her whenever possible. They understand the concept of serving the greater good, and act accordingly.

Certainly it’s a hit to the ego when we work toward a goal only to see our efforts not only far outstripped by another but overshadowed to the point where we are unnecessary. This is the point where we need to ask ourselves what’s more important. Is it the cause? Or our having our names in bold print on the playbill?

No, I am not comparing Sarah Palin to Jesus Christ. However, there is a parallel to the proper attitude we who espouse conservative philosophies and practices should embrace in John the Baptist’s comment to his followers about Him: “He must increase; I must decrease.”

Palin doesn’t need the insiders unknown to one and all on the outside. She doesn’t need our blogrolls, Twitter followers or mutual admiration societies masquerading as political action movements. It’s not that she’s actively spurning us, doesn’t appreciate us and doesn’t acknowledge us. She doesn’t need us. If that’s interpreted as a slam, it’s not her fault. It lies within those whose response to the mirror is “you lie!”

No, no it doesn’t.

ADDENDUM: On the same subject, a most highly recommended dissertation by Enoch Root at Piece Of Work In Progress.